Utente:Ipatia/Sandbox3
Background and Setting[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
The world where the series takes place is called Abode and has many similarities to Earth, but has two moons instead of just one. The history and continents differ somewhat, but the development of human progress remains largely similar.
The elves of Elfquest are descended from highly advanced humanoid aliens known as the High Ones, who had immense and quasi-magical psychic powers [1] and could not die of old age. When their homeworld's resources were depleted by overpopulation, several groups of High Ones went spacefaring to explore the wider universe and to find new planets to settle. They controlled their egg-shaped vessels by telekinesis and were able to adapt to any ecosystem by shifting their own shapes and metabolisms. As companions, they brought two of the last surviving animal species from their home, both of which gradually evolved during the journey (and subsequent events) into two more races of sapient near-immortals: the insectoid Preservers and the simian-descended Trolls.
The Preservers are sprite-like winged humanoids genderless and seem unable to breed, but as they are immortal and hardy survivors, their number is relatively constant. Both the trolls and the Preservers evolved from more animal-like ancestors, but because of the magic in the palace they became immortal and gained the ability to speak and to think abstractly. Once on Abode, natural selection caused the trolls to increase in both strength and size.
After journeying to many different worlds, one of these vessels came to Abode (known to its inhabitants as the World of Two Moons), where human civilization had reached a level comparable to Europe's medieval period on Earth. The humans' artwork and literature depicted angels, deities, spirits and other ethereal beings which suggested to the High Ones that others of their kind had previously visited that world. In order to facilitate contact with the humans and seek out more information about these previous visitors, before landing on the world the High Ones deliberately formed themselves like elves and reshaped their egg-vessel to resemble a beautiful floating castle that matched the native architectural idiom.
The palace itself consists of two main parts: the magical material of which it is made, and two magic scrolls that contain all the history of the High Ones. The palace is also where the souls of dead elves come together to spend the rest of their existence.
However, by this time the evolved simians (proto-Trolls) had become resentful of their subservient status. As the 'castle' began to descend, the simians violently rebelled, disrupting the telekinetic controls enough to hurl the entire vessel and its contents back through time to Abode's paleolithic era. Staggering out from the crash-landing, the High Ones found that their psychic powers were greatly weakened on Abode, leaving them unable to defend themselves from the prehistoric cave-dwelling humans who fearfully attacked them.[1] Forcibly dispersed away from the massacre outside the palace-shaped vessel, many of the initial elf survivors soon died, unable to adapt to the hostile environment;[1] the others gradually gathered into several widely-scattered tribes. The High Ones' evolved-simian servants also fled, mainly into underground caverns where they became larger and established themselves as the subterranean race of Trolls, treasure-seeking miners and metalsmiths whose original links to the High Ones were forgotten.
The main story begins 10,000 years later, with elves and other beings having adapted with great difficulty to their home. Each tribe of elves has its own set of adaptations and traditions, and most of them are unaware that any of the other tribes even existed.
The Wolfriders[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
The central characters are the Wolfrider elves, a tribe of ferocious hunter/warriors closely allied with wolves who serve as mounts, hunting partners, and friends. Their culture is roughly comparable to the Iroquois Native American nation. Within their founder group, a female High One named Timmain had been the only member to retain her shape-shifting ability. When winter came, Timmain shape-shifted into a wolf to hunt food for the starving elves around her. She sank very deeply into her wolf-form and eventually forgot her original identity, even mating with a native wolf to produce a half-wolf chimeric son whom she handed over to the Elves after teaching him as much as she could as a wolf. They gave him the name Timmorn Yellow-Eyes and he became the first Chief of the Wolfriders, bringing the wolf pack and the stranded elves together to form a close symbiotic alliance. This alliance breaks the Wolfriders of immortality. In addition to the close bonds with their wolves, the Wolfriders also have some basic psychic powers like telepathy, healing and plant manipulation.
The central storyline, beginning with the series known as the Grand Quest or Original Quest, focuses on the tribe during the leadership of their eleventh chief Cutter. At the start of the story, the Wolfriders' regular forest life - intermittently interspersed by conflict with superstitiously genocidal humans - is lost when the humans set fire to the forest in retaliation for a previous battle.
The Wolfriders seek refuge in the underground caverns of their sullen, greedy, cowardly trade partners, the trolls. The elves claim that the trolls owe them sanctuary because of all the ways the Wolfriders have helped them over the years, but the corrupt troll king, Greymung, feels humiliated for being held at knife point by an elf and plots revenge. The elves are taken down a long tunnel toward what the trolls claim will be a land of bright promise, but is actually a trackless desert.[2] Then their guide seals the tunnel behind them. Desperately inspired by a piece of "magic" lodestone that acts as a crude compass, they make an arduous journey across the wasteland until they encounter an oasis called Sorrow's End, populated by a tribe of sedentary, agrarian elves called the Sun Folk.
The Sun Folk[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
Compared to the Wolfriders, the peaceful Sun Folk have retained more knowledge about the High Ones. However, there are some psychic phenomena which have remained more common among the Wolfriders than among the Sun Folk, such as "Sending" (telepathic communication), and "Recognition", a powerful involuntary compulsion to mate with another elf; this mating is guaranteed to produce offspring. This powerful impulse can be resisted with difficulty, but at the cost of great personal stress. If the two individuals are not temperamentally compatible, they may part ways again as soon as a child has been produced, but otherwise they may form a lifelong pair-bond as "lifemates."
Cutter's partner in Recognition is the Sun Folk's beautiful and powerful Healer, Leetah. She immediately rejects him as a savage barbarian, especially since she is already partnered to her village's haughty chief hunter, Rayek. The love triangle between Cutter, Leetah and Rayek is the main focus of much of the first part of the story. Cutter and Leetah eventually become lifemates; bested by Cutter in a ritual trial and displaced as sole hunter and protector by the Wolfriders, Rayek leaves the village.
Once this conflict is resolved, the two tribes quickly unite with each side willing to adjust to the other for their mutual benefit. The Wolfriders enjoy the benefits of a more sophisticated culture with greater knowledge, while the Sun Folk benefit from a band of strong hunters and defenders of their desert refuge from humanity.
Six years later, the oasis sanctuary of Sorrow's End is breached by a handful of starving humans who approach the oasis. Although they are sent on their way (probably to die of thirst), Cutter realizes that more could follow and decides to take action. He goes on a quest with his soul-brother, Skywise, seeking other elf tribes as allies against humanity. Later, Cutter's son, Suntop, receives a warning from the Sun Folk's elder Savah, The Mother Of Memory about an evil which Cutter most avoid. (Savah, who is close to being a High One herself, possesses a magical ability known as "going out" where her spirit leaves her body in attempts to connect to other Elves. In this way she was also able to briefly contact Rayek after he left Sorrow's End.) The majority of the Wolfriders escort Leetah, Suntop and his twin sister Ember on their journey to deliver Savah's warning to Cutter and Skywise.
The Gliders[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
Continuing their quest, Cutter and Skywise learn of the existence of another elf tribe dwelling in a place called Blue Mountain. This previously unknown tribe, consisting of tall, thin, graceful elves, is known as the Gliders. They treated humans like any other prey, until a human shaman made her way near the peak of Blue Mountain and sang and talked to them. The Gliders then agreed not to hunt humans, if they in turn received offerings and worship. The humans then worshiped them as "spirit-gods".
The Gliders claim to be original High Ones and are nominally led by an ancient elf named Lord Voll. wanted them to have a safe home, thus their rockshapers built a home inside Blue Mountain after the memories of the Palace of the High Ones. After Lord Voll's lover and confidant Winnowill created the Chosen Eight - a group of hunters that rode the Giant Hawks that nested in Blue Mountain - no one but those hunters left the mountain. They are a conservative community that has degenerated into insular decadence, dominated by the seductive, sinister Winnowill, who was once Voll's consort but who now has her own agenda.
Cut off from new impulses, the Gliders' culture turned in on itself. They created intricate art, such as the Egg of Six Spheres, which recorded the elves' history, but stopped growing. For millennia no children were born. Some of the rockshapers were put into permanent trance, and do nothing but fulfill a certain function. Winnowill manipulated Voll, so that his plans to leave Blue Mountain again never grew to fruition. Lord Voll came to believe that the elves were doomed to wither, and that there would never be any children born. Only the arrival of the Wolfriders with their children and the Preservers could wake him up. He was then determined to return to the Palace of the High Ones as soon as possible - but was killed before reaching it, leaving Winnowill as new Lord of the Gliders.
The Gliders rarely venture out of their mountain except for the "Chosen Eight", the tribe's hunters and (if need be) warriors. Although they have their own powers of psychic levitation, the Eight ride massive birds with whom they share a strong bond, similar to that of the Wolfriders and their wolves. As the Wolfriders search for Cutter and Skywise, Strongbow shoots down one of the massive birds for food. Enraged at the death of their mount, the Gliders attack the Wolfriders and imprison most of the tribe within Blue Mountain. Winnowill then tortures Strongbow for the death of the bird, while Leetah, Ember, and Suntop hide in the "Forbidden Grove" which is the home of the Preservers. Nightfall and Redlance also manage to escape imprisonment, and stumble upon Cutter and Skywise shortly after Cutter and his family are re-united. One-Eye, also not captured, lurks around the base of the mountain surviving on the humans' unknown generosity.
Dewshine, much to the dismay of her and her tribe, becomes Recognized by one of the Gliders named Tyldak. Tyldak has been reshaped by Winnowill to resemble a bird himself. Both fight the Recognition at first, but eventually give in and Dewshine becomes pregnant.
Winnowill put all Gliders but the Chosen Eight into deep sleep, and attempted to use their magic powers to shape Blue Mountain into a vessel to leave the World of Two Moons. This plan was foiled by the Wolfriders. The already re-shaped Blue Mountain shattered, and nearly all Gliders were killed - as a people or tribe, the Gliders do not exist anymore.
What follows is a difficult but enlightening journey, in which the elves' most basic assumptions about the world are turned upside down as they meet humans who are more good than they ever hoped, elves more evil than they ever imagined, and trolls more aggressive than they ever feared. Throughout these adventures, Cutter and his companions learn about the world and themselves in profound ways.
The Go-Backs[modifica | modifica wikitesto]
The Go-Backs are the fourth and last Elf tribe encountered during the Original Quest. Originally a migrating tribe, the Go-Backs are named after a sudden desire to "go back" to the palace of the High Ones. The Palace has a strong pull on all elves once in range, and the Go-Backs were the first to stumble on it since the High Ones were driven away. First appearing to save Cutter and his followers from a war party of trolls in a snow-bound tundra, the Go-Backs are arctic-dwelling elk-herders, bearing about the same resemblance to Sami as the Wolfriders do to Iroquois and the Sun Folk to Mesoamericans (that is to say, mainly in costume). They are highly warlike and hardened, being locked in continual strife with the trolls who bar their way to the palace. They have a prejudice against "magic", but not to the extent of persecuting its users. The Go-Backs, so removed from magic, no longer rely on Recognition to procreate. They provided the bulk of the military strength that allowed the completion of the first quest, and lost half their numbers in doing so.
Later stories emphasized the conservatism, savagery, and selfishness of the Go-Backs, qualities which (aside from the first) were not especially obvious in their first appearance. Their artistic depiction changed over the years to make them appear more brutal and degenerate, consistent with the underlying political orientation of the authors.[senza fonte]Template:POV-statement
Nel 1984 la Chaosium produsse su licenza un gioco di ruolo ispirato al fumetto Elfquest e chiamato con lo stesso nome.
Elfquest utilizza il sistema Basic Role-Playing, apparso per la prima volta nel gioco di ruolo Runequest, e conteneva alcune illustrazioni originali dell'autrice Wendy Pini, tra cui le schede dei personaggi.
Per Elfquest vennero prodotte soltanto tre espansioni:
- ElfQuest Companion che conteneva le tabelle per la creazione dei personaggi con procedimento casuale, e che fu inclusa nella seconda edizione in brossura[3].
- Sea Elves degna di menzione perché conteneva informazioni e illustrazioni che descrivevano la tribù dei Sea Elves e che furono qui fornite dai coniugi Pini molto prima che esse apparissero nel fumetto.
- Elf War che conteneva numerose avventure al di fuori della continuity del fumetto.
Per Elfquest [[Ral Partha] creò 6 set di miniature metalliche bianche alte 25 mm.
Sia il gioco di ruolo che lo stesso fumetto hanno dato origine a numerosi giochi online.